So… Who’s Your Favorite Singer Then?

March 15, 2012 at 9:44 am (Uncategorized)
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I get this question ALL THE TIME.

When people learn how involved in music I am and how much I have done with music in my life, they always want an opinion.

I have to say; this is one of the hardest questions I get on a regular basis. Music is so extraordinary because it can literally affect all of the emotions that are going on in your head at one time. It can make sadness more prominent, it can make you thoughtful. It brings to life the words that you can’t seem to get out yourself. Music is personal and deep and reflective.

So to answer your quesiton: Who is your favorite singer?

I have a list.

When I feel like singing. Really singing with a wide range and inflections and dynamics, I listen to people like

Sara Bareilles

Adele

Missy Higgins

The Script

And some musical soundtracks.. because I am a dork.

ImageMissy Higgins. Google Images

When I am writing music (yes, I listen to lyrics and I write them. backwards I know.) I listen to

Taylor Swift

Relient K

Regina Spektor

Jack Johnson

Eric Hutchinson

ImageRegina Spektor. Google Images.

When I am rocking in the car. I go old school. 80′s rock and roll

ACDC

Kansas

Journey

The Eagles

This brings me back to when I grew up and was rockin in the car with my pops. I love it

ImageACDC. Google Images

Probably my biggest irritation with people is when they write off an entire genre. I love opera, and classical, and symphonic music but I also love pop and country and alternative. Too often artists are put in boxes by people and they refuse to look inside and give them a chance.

Some of my favorite songs (other than the links posted up top)

She (For Liz) by Parachute

You and Tequila by Kenny Chesney

Fix You by Coldplay

Rumor Has It by Adele

I Want To Hold Your Hand on The Across The Universe Soundtrack

Won’t Go Home Without You by Maroon 5

Hey Girl by O.A.R

Come On Get Higher by Matt Nathanson

My list goes on and on but there are a few of my favorites. Music is vital to my survival and I love finding new artists.

Any suggestions, let me know.

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To Write Love On Her Arms

March 1, 2012 at 10:30 am (Uncategorized)
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Photo: Terri Spaulding

Everyone struggles. Everyone has issues. Everyone feels insufficient at times.

But what does it take to turn that feeling of incompetence to a feeling of eternal despair? Where do we cross that line from sad depressed? And how can we prevent it?

In middle school I and a lot of my friends struggled with depression and self mutilation and during high school when the past haunted us we tossed it up to being over dramatic preteens. Now I have to wonder; is my past catching up with me years later?

This past semester in particular has been difficult on me, I don’t feel like myself but I can’t pinpoint why. I don’t know how to really explain it but there are good days and bad. Its life. We push through. I am lucky that I have a support group of friends and family whom I know are always by my side. I love them for it.

Then I wonder, what about the people who don’t have anyone? Where does that leave them? And am I even slightly responsible for their actions?

When I was in middle school, a friend of my best friend who I knew slightly, committed suicide by overdosing. It was hard, knowing what to say to my friend, how to help her feel better when no one could explain why this happened. I became concerned for my friend’s well being, hoping this didn’t hurt her or take her away from me.

A couple years later I had a cousin commit suicide, he was in college. While I didn’t know him all too well, the tragedy hit home. His mother and my mother were extremely close growing up and I know it was more difficult on my mom than on me. She took a red eye to Wisconsin as soon as she could.

To Write Love On Her Arms is a social movement focusing on those that suffer from depression, self mutilation, and addiction among other problems. The goal is to inspire hope. It began as a way to help a girl pay for treatments for addiction. It has grown into an international cause for all who struggle. And everyone struggles.

I don’t know the answers to my previous questions, I don’t know who is responsible. All I know is that I struggle every day and I know many people who are right along with me. I believe that community, friendship, hope, and most of all love are the factors that keep us going with life because frankly, life sucks sometimes.

I’m putting this out there because I care and its time that I become vulnerable and take a chance. I cut myself when I was younger and I had thoughts of suicide but I came out of it. I pulled through but not everyone else does. This is for those that don’t and those that are thinking they can’t. You deserve happiness and you deserve love. Don’t think that you are not worth the time because you are a gift and you are beautiful.

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Remember. You are loved.

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For My Father: A Post of Love

February 27, 2012 at 12:25 pm (Uncategorized)
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My Dad’s Birthday is coming up in a little over a week and I almost forgot! I am a terrible daughter! But I still have time. In my psychology class, we were talking about adolescence the other day and we were sharing stories of our upbringing and as I was sitting there listening to some of the horror stories of my classmates I started thinking about my childhood. I had a great one. Sure, some things could have gone better but my parents were always incredibly supportive in both my brother and I’s lives. We were encouraged to pursue whatever we wanted to, regardless of our skill or lack there of. My brother gravitated to sports, I towards music.

My dad moved out when I was in 4th grade and into an apartment nearby. This was the difficult part. Adjusting to not having him at home. It was difficult for my brother, who is six years older than I, and myself. Looking now, this change in our family structure is what brought my relationship with my dad to the level that it is now.

My dad has given me a lot of things.

I grew up with a love of the outdoors because of him. He took me hunting and fishing, taught me how to identify different types of animals,  how to find blue gill beds, where to go to ask for permission to go on to a property. He told me the old stories of growing up on Gun Lake and would reminisce about how the times have changed. Though he loved him time out doors he also taught me how to value nature, and to never take more than what was ours. He said to me the first (and only) time I went deer hunting with him “Leanna, to me it doesn’t matter if I get anything. I care more about waking up to the sounds of nature. Especially with you”.

My dad and my brother are identical. I swear. Every time my brother comes home I am amazed at how much he looks like him. While every one tells me I look exactly like my mom, I see my dad in me more. My blonde hair and my cheeks are 100% my father. My mom always teases me that I got my dad’s feet and hands too.

My brother and my father are close. They are so similar in personalities it can be scary but my dad does have some older man wisdom that my brother has yet to figure out yet.

My dad bought a cabin up north about a year ago and when my brother came home this summer we went up for a weekend together. We surprised him with a sign at the entrance. My dad was incredibly proud when Dan made the decision to join the Air Force, he himself was in the army and spent time over in Germany.

My dad taught me not to fear love. He got burned in love a few times since my parent’s divorce but is now in a relationship with his childhood sweetheart. I know that my dad can be hard to handle, much like my brother, and I give Dawn big props for sticking to him but for all his faults my dad is a great person. He has consistently and fearlessly jumped headfirst in to love. BUT he has always respected my time with him. He always asked me if it was okay if he could bring someone along on our little excursions.

In many ways, my dad is my hero. I love his laugh and his smile. He can always make me feel better. My dad has been a huge supportive role in my life. Encouraging me to go after what I want. When I was in musicals in high school, he came to almost every single showing, just to hear me. When I sang in church choir, he would come to church for me. I played sports in elementary and middle school and it was rare for him to miss a game. My entire life, my dad has been there for whatever I need. He knows who I am and respects who I want to become. I don’t know what I would ever do with out him. He is my rock.

Annie 2009

Hello Dolly 2010

My dad and I summer 2011 at our cabin

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Past, Present, Future. A Letter from the Other Side.

February 6, 2012 at 12:03 pm (Day By Day)
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I recently celebrated a birthday. I turned over another decade and while I know I am still young, I feel like I should commemorate this  in some way. I was thinking about my previous years and how I wish there was someone there who had all the answers for me. I wish I could go home and find some big book that I could open and it would tell me everything I wanted to know. Well, this never happened but here a few things I would tell myself if I could.

Dear Leanna,

If I could tell you one thing that I wish you to know throughout these twenty years previous it is this: Be yourself. Love yourself. It gets easier.

I know its been difficult before but there is beauty in that difficulty, you will grow so much from these experiences and know yourself better because of them. I know if feels sometimes like you are the odd man out but don’t worry, that’s a feeling everyone experiences. Not just you. I know you are unhappy sometimes the unhappiness just makes the good times better. Just know that you will make it through.

Its a bad idea to antagonize your brother. He will stuff you in that hockey bag of his. I promise, it smells bad. As much as you want him to just move out already now, there will be a time when you want him around. After all, it is only him that has shared so many of the experiences as you have. It really is him who shares that sibling connection. Just stay out of him love life. That gets even more complicated.

You should really try harder in school. Even though you aren’t going to be happy when you are stuck going to community college your first two years, it will end up being a really good thing. You will find amazing friends in some really unexpected places. I know that you want to leave this town and start new but there is something to holding on to the past. If you don’t know where you come from, how can you know where you are going?

You have never been afraid to speak your mind, hold on to this gift. It will become valuable, especially in college. I know your mouth can get you in trouble too but its okay. No one became famous without making some waves first.

Love never comes easy. It just doesn’t. Heartbreak sucks but there have been worse times in life. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince charming (and in all honestly, the frogs are still lining up). I know it seems like your friends are a lot luckier in those areas than you are but they have their fair share of troubles too, they just hide it better than you do.

I wish you would involve yourself in more school things. I know it seems like you have a lot on your plate but these opportunities pass quickly though it doesn’t seem like it now. Don’t be afraid of those other grades either. There are good people both older and younger than you. If there is one thing I wish I could change about high schools its the caste system that is firmly ingrained in everyone’s mind.

Just remember to have fun and don’t take yourself too seriously. Life a dance, you learn as you go. Just don’t worry if you fall out of step, there is always time to get back on track. Make your mistakes and learn from them. I’ll see you in the future.

Love and happiness.

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Everything But The Kitchen Sink

January 20, 2012 at 12:54 pm (365 Project, Day By Day)
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My memory is filled with images of kitchens. Lots of them. I didn’t realize that almost every significant event that happened in my home took place in my kitchen. Or everyone else’s kitchen for that matter.

Yesterday in my anthropology class we compared an American kitchen of the 1950′s to one of the present and discussed what it said about the society. We listed and talked and all was well and dandy but underneath the picture my professor posed the question “What was the busiest room in your house growing up? And what about now?”

Well I have to say mine has pretty much stayed the same even though I have moved, remodeled, grown up, what have you.

In my hundred year old farmhouse that I loved, my friends and I would come home after school and we would each take our position in the kitchen. I would sit on the counter with my back against the cupboards, Danielle would grab the computer chair, Kelli would sit on the floor against the oven. Every day, we would come home (we all lived right next to each other) and we would eat and talk and sometimes accomplish homework. So many of my best memories with these girls were sitting there in     that kitchen laughing, talking, dancing. Sometimes we would switch it up and walk to one of the other girls house but we always congregated in the kitchen and we all had ‘our place’.

My house now has a gorgeous kitchen (the brainchild of my mother’s renovations) and its the first thing you see when you walk through the front door. I would do my homework at the table at night, I bake and cook (obviously) in that kitchen, my mom is central to the kitchen. It seems so empty without her there in it.

The Spaulding’s house, my grandmother’s house, my dad’s house, everything seems to take place in the kitchen. I remember my first real talk with Terri I was sitting at her counter with her on the other side, looking me in the eye as I poured my heart out about something. From that point I knew that this was a place for me to be, this was a family for me to love, this was comfortable.

I think back at the memories of mine and I vividly remember the spaces, the people, the depth, and the importance of it. We all have our own comfort zone. I guess mine is the kitchen.

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When Words Fail

January 17, 2012 at 7:40 pm (365 Project, Day By Day)
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What do you do when you don’t know what to say?

Rarely am I ever at a loss for words. In fact, I think a lot of times I have to many words to say (kinda the point of starting this blog…). Sometimes I speak so much that it becomes ineffectual but that is besides the point. I am a writer and a speaker. My friends, I hope, value my opinion. Words have never failed me.

When my parents got divorced. I wrote a short story (too embarrassing to ever show anybody)

When my heart got broken in middle school. I wrote a song.

When I made the dean’s list three times in a row. I called every single family member and bragged about it. seriously.

When I am stressed out. I sing.

Words have always been there. Sometimes my own words, sometimes some one elses that get the point across better. So what happens when everything you have to say doesn’t sound right? How do you tell someone you love them without smothering them?

I have a friend who told me something incredibly personal, a struggle. He is hurting and scared and lonely and unsure and I didn’t know what to say to him. Sorry, that was a lie. I knew exactly what I WANTED to say to him but doing so would have been all wrong, so I bit my tongue (for once in my life). I listened, I nodded and mmhmmed. I felt a little like a psychologist misplaced in a restaurant.

I adore this friend, I have grown very close to him in the time that I have known him and his friendship means a lot to me. I am afraid that my opinion will hurt him and sounds like every other stereotypical person out there. Which is NOT something that he needs.

So what do you do when words don’t do what they are supposed to? You sit and listen. Simply, you are there. Your presence is enough to show your support. So what I learned today is that actions and words speak loudly but doing nothing, simply just being, speaks in a whisper that changes everything.

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Overuse I Love You

January 6, 2012 at 3:52 pm (365 Project)
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Day 3, January 4th

E.E Cummings is my favorite poet

and ‘I carry your heart with me’ is my favorite poem

Day 4, January 5th

Some people are incapable of doing work

Seriously. Sometimes I just can’t get over the fact that some people do not understand how to work, people who have been doing the same job for half of their lifetime and they still can’t accomplish anything. Its annoying. really annoying. and it makes the other people who can do their job work 10 times harder to pick up other people’s slack.

Day 5, January 6th

Overuse ‘I love you’

a lyric from a song I enjoy. I think this is fantastic advice. You can never tell someone you care about how much they mean to you enough. Life is too short to have regrets and this is one thing that is easy to fix.

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Who Says You Can’t Come Home?

January 3, 2012 at 12:49 pm (365 Project)
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Day 1, January 2nd

When push comes to shove, my mom is my rock

I strive to be independent, I really do. Sometimes it comes to a point where I am so independent it seems like I don’t care. I don’t mean to hurt anyone when I tell them that I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life or that I fully plan to move far away but somehow I do. I guess I don’t fear leaving home because I know I can always come back. I know that I will be successful because the people that raised me are successful. I was out to lunch the other day with my mom in this little local burger joint that only fits about 15 people, its so tiny and one of our favorite places, the owners know us by name. We were all talking, the whole restaurant and making jokes and such when someone asked me what I was doing next year for school and such, I told them my tentative plans and how I wanted to move to Alaska in the future. My mom made a joke about how her children like to leave her (my brother is stationed in Anchorage right now) and some sweet old lady across the room told her she should take it as a compliment, she has raised her children to have enough confidence to move away and still be secure.

I had never thought of it that way before and I don’t think my mom had either but it was a really nice perspective for both of us. My mom and I have been through a lot together and are really close, she is one of the sweetest people in the world. I know that no problem is small enough to be insignificant and no mistake is big enough to be unforgivable when it comes down to her and I. She will always be there for me, regardless of distance or circumstances.

Day 2, January 3rd

There is beauty in every type of weather and in Michigan you are likely to experience them all in 24 hours.

Snow, Rain, Hail, Sunshine, Clouds, Fog, you get used to everything around here. You also get to know who are native Michigan drivers and who are visitors/tourists from the southern states.

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Three Six Five

January 1, 2012 at 12:33 pm (Uncategorized)
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I have never been one for New Years or New Years Resolutions. Honestly, it annoys me and I think New Years is the most anticlimactic holiday of them all. Aside from that little rant I was thinking the other day. I learn so many things each day and do not recognize it. Each hour is filled with little things that could potentially have an effect on my life. So I have decided to start my own 365 Challenge. Each day, recognize one thing that I learned. It could be little, big, something personal, something collegiate, something random. 365 days in a year, 365 pieces of information. 

I guess this is sort of a New Years Resolution.. uh oh. 

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My Grown Up Christmas Wish

December 13, 2011 at 2:10 pm (Day By Day)
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I never remember believing in Santa Claus. I’m sure I did, my mom tells me I did. I just don’t remember a lot of my younger childhood memories. As I grew older, the idea of Santa became childish and I pushed the idea away. Then I graduated high school and the thought of believing in someone who brought you things for free seemed like dream come true. Now, my niece is born and I have come full circle in telling the myth of Santa Claus. When I think about it now, I want to believe that there is someone out there who could make dreams come true. Someone who cared enough to work hard all year just to make people happy for one day. Then I think about it harder and I realize that my parents who spread the real idea of Christmas. Not only with presents but with love and happiness and generosity. Today when people ask me what I want for Christmas I never know what to say. Nothing I really want is tangible, nothing I want can really be wrapped and put under a tree. I wish for something much greater than that.

Dear Santa,

What I want for Christmas this year is simple to say, but thats where simple ends. It is something that I do not want for myself but for everyone around the world. What I want this year is love. I want people around the world to know love because with love, hunger wouldn’t exist, children would be safe, wars would cease. With love, our brother, sisters, mother, fathers, and all loved ones would come home. With love, finances wouldn’t matter because being together would be enough to make everyone happy. With love, pain would be lessened.

I want our world leaders to have empathy for each other, an emotion rooted in love, so that we don’t have to worry every night for the safety of those across the world. So I know for certain that each day will be as promising as the last one.

I want my friends to know love so that every time their heart breaks, they know that there is hope for the next adventure. So that they know that there will always be someone there to support them, no matter the distance or the time difference.

I want my family to know love so that they understand that leaving doesn’t mean abandonment but rather growth. I want love to become so abundant that they can feel it all the way across the world, or wherever I and they might end up.

Santa, this is all I want for Christmas, and for life. I just want love. Because love can do wonders. It can help and heal and provide comfort for all. Love is beautiful.

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